Inside AR (Feb 16th, 2017)

Oculus has acknowledged "lingering issues" with the recent 1.11 platform update, and will address the problems over the next two updates. The update's stated main attraction was a performance boost for room-scale tracking set-ups featuring more than two sensors, but for some the update only made things worse. Reddit users have reported problems like misaligned virtual floors and sensor position jumps. – ROAD TO VR

Virtual reality has restored the opulence to the "Domus Aurea," once the home of Rome's infamous Emperor Nero. The compound's name means "golden house." Because of Nero's reputation, the villa (the size of three football fields) was eventually buried and forgotten about until Renaissance artists discovered it, thinking they had found an ancient cave. The site began offering virtual reality headsets to tourists this month, so that they can experience the "light and opulence" of the home as it once was. – CBS

Valve CEO Gabe Newell told a group of reporters at a recent roundtable interview that while he thought VR was "going great," he was also "comfortable with the idea that it will turn out to be a complete failure." Newell, worth over $4 billion, was speaking about VR in the context of the company's previous "huge risk," the enormously popular video game platform Steam. Valve partnered with Vive on the $800 HTC Vive headset. About the device, Newell said, "The Vive is the most expensive device on the market. It's barely capable of doing a marginally adequate job of delivering a VR experience." (Valve is not a public company, so Business Insider notes that Newell has no "shareholders to outrage.") – BI

Elisa Evans and Martin Shervington of Cardiff, Wales, will be the first couple to experience a VR wedding along with guests spread around the globe. The couple, along with local friends and family, will show up at one of their favorite hangout spots on the 25th of that month for the ceremony. They will then don their VR headsets and join guests scattered around the globe to share their wedding in VR space. Social platform Altspace VR is facilitating the event. – UPLOADVR

At the debut of Imax's new Los Angeles VR center, CEO Richard Gelfond said the industry needs a "jump-start." Talking to reporters at the newest Imax VR Experience Centre, Gelfond said, "Whether it’s the lack of content or consumer access to headsets, the industry has been in a holding pattern, slow to go mainstream." Gelfond then said IMAX could provide a major boost via its six pilot VR locales. At the VR Experience locations, customers can try out VR without having to spring for the pricey home hardware. – LAT

Augmented reality rock climbing is popping up at gyms around the world. The AR version involves an overlay of adjustable digital checkpoints that need to be hit along the climb. CNET'S Alfred Ng tried it out at the original Brooklyn Boulders gym. Ng says the experience "made rock climbing even harder," and that it feels like playing a video game with "your body" as the controller. The Brooklyn locale had an AR rock climbing competition on January 29th that was meant to last three hours, but was cut short at a third of that time due to climber exhaustion. – CNET

SCOBLE'S CORNER

(Hi! We've got a cool new addition today at Inside VR/AR: We will periodically be sharing musings from mixed reality evangelist Robert Scoble's Facebook feed. We hope you enjoy them as much as we do!)

"What's next?

Self driving cars? Sure, but the user interface that will control those is mixed reality.

Robots? Sure, but the user interface that will control those is mixed reality.

Drones? Sure, but the user interface that will control those is mixed reality.

Smart cities? Sure, but the user interface that will control those is mixed reality.